Mae West: Mae in December

It would not seem right to bid adieu to the last month of the year without mentioning the MAE WEST LP from 1980 — — "Mae in December," flavored with the unique campy style that gave her numbers such a kick.
• • Initially released in a modest pressing as "Wild Christmas" [1966], the tracks were reissued on a small Hollywood label: AEI Records fourteen years later. The original monaural recording presented the same covers but in a slightly different order. It seems this collection has not been offered in a Compact Disc format.
• • • • SIDE 1 • • • •
1. Santa Come Up To See Me
2. Santa Bring My Baby Back To Me
3. Merry Christmas Baby
4. Santa Claus Is Back In Town
• • • • SIDE 2 • • • •
5. Put The Loot In The Boot, Santa
6. With Love From Me To You
7. Santa Baby
8. My New Year's Resolutions
• • A hard-working Mae-maven from Vancouver, Canada Mark Desjardins has shared some fascinating information about the songwriter behind "Put the Loot in the Boot, Santa" — — so come up and see Mae next month to find out more.
• • To the loyal followers of the MAE WEST BLOG, as well as all the wonderful "drive by" readers, may you ring in the year 2011 with an abundance of joy and high spirits, and may every day be meaningful and well-spent.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: A Jury Chorus

Despite all of the good books written about MAE WEST — — many quoting the reviews she received in Variety, The New York Dramatic Mirror, etc. — — a few paragraphs of praise have escaped notice. That's one reason it's important to blog (and blither and blather) about the ever-fascinatin' Brooklyn bombshell.
• • On 30 December 1912 the singing comedienne was giving a double performance at 7:30 PM and at 11:00 PM at B.F. Keith's Union Square Theatre on Fourteenth Street. Featured on the bill, along with the 19-year-old hopeful, was a great deal of variety. Britain's Laddie Cliff offered new songs and eccentric dances; Phina and company entertained; Alfredo (wandering wizard of the violin) played; Asaki presented his juggling act, so popular in Japan; and gymnasts Lydia and Albino did . . . something.
• • According to The New York Times reviewer: Suffrage is having its day at Keith's Union Square Theatre this week in a musical feature which brings Gilbert and Sullivan's "Trial by Jury" within the limits of a vaudeville act and makes it a trial wholly feminine. Singing girl attorneys prosecute the defendant for breach of promise and plead on his behalf, a contralto Judge charges the jury, and the lady jury itself is the chorus. "Court by Girls" the skit is called. It was received with great approval . . .
• • The Times critic added: Mae West, who last appeared in "The Winsome Widow," made her debut [sic] as a vaudeville singer in songs and impersonations which won the applause of a crowded house.
• • Always observing other vaudevillians to see what she could learn, Mae probably kept her eye on "England's Clever Boy Comedian" whose stage name was Laddie Cliff. Born in the UK on 3 September 1891, the trouper was 21 when he met Miss West. His career, unfortunately, was cut short. Laddie Cliff died at age 46 during December 1937. If you know what he died of, take a moment to write in.
— — Excerpt: — —
• • Article: "SUFFRAGE ACT IN VAUDEVILLE; With Singing Judge and Attorneys and a Jury Chorus All Feminine"
• • Published by: The New York Times
• • Published on: 31 December 1912
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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• • Photo: • • Mae West at 19 years old • • 1912 • •
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Mae West: Dinkelspiel's December

MAE WEST was still being billed as "MAY WEST" in 1912. Publicity printed for Vera Violetta, A Winsome Widow, and her vaudeville acts show that the public still knew her name with a Y.
• • Union Square • •
• • Over a century ago, when Union Square offered the best theatres, hotels, and opera house — — the Academy of Music — — B.F. Keith renovated a 14th Street playhouse between Fourth Avenue and Broadway.
• • Expensively refurbished for $20,000 and reopened in September 1893, the Union Square Theatre beckoned ticket-buyers to its expansive 100-feet-wide cream and gold frontage with colored lights, stained glass, intriguing placards, and a new concept: continuous performance. Variety artists entertained for a 3-hour stretch, then the show started all over again.
• • May We Present . . . • •
• • During 1912 — 1913, when the Brooklyn comedienne was occasionally promoted as "The Nell Brinkley Girl," or the "scintillating singing comedienne," or "the firefly of Broadway," she was a fresh-faced brunette teenager with a reputation for fast tap dancing and acrobatic feats onstage combined with "character" [novelty] songs. Unlike others who had one act to offer the public, Mae was always trying out new approaches and buying new material.
• • In the newspapers on 29 December 1912, readers noticed that B.F. Keith was offering "Dinkelspiel's Christmas" along with "MAY WEST — singing comedienne" [see the 29 Dec 1912 ad]. The 14th Street theatre is long gone but here is a glimpse of what you missed if you didn't dial STuyvesant 3400 to reserve your ticket.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Kathleen Clifford

A large cast of actors and actresses rehearsed with MAE WEST for "Vera Violetta," which opened on 20 November 1911 at the Winter Garden Theatre and continued to draw ticket-buyers through the Christmas holidays, closing in late February 1912. Unfortunately, the ambitious Broadway hopeful upstaged the musical revue's haughty French star, so she was dismissed.
• • After the clash with Gaby Deslys, Mae West's part as Miss Angelique from the Opera Comique was awarded to Kathleen Clifford, who also worked with Mae on Broadway in "A Winsome Widow" [April — September 1912]. Since the enchanting Miss Clifford died during the month of December — — on 28 December 1962 — — let's enjoy her company.
• • Kathleen Clifford • •
• • Born in Charlottesville, Virginia on 16 February 1887, Kathleen Clifford was an American vaudeville and Broadway stage and film actress of the early twentieth century.
• • As with "Baby Mae," Kathleen Clifford's career acting was initially built on the vaudeville stages as a comedienne. Renowned for her impersonations of men, Kathleen Clifford was often humorously billed as "The Smartest Chap in Town."
• • In January 1907, Miss Clifford made her Broadway stage debut at the Lincoln Square Theatre in the musical "The Bell of London Town." Clifford's stage credits were numerous and she snagged a variety of parts throughout the 1910s.
• • For example, a large cast was hired for the Florenz Ziegfeld musical production "A Winsome Widow" [staged on Broadway from April — September 1912]. Kathleen Clifford was hired to play a male role: Willie Grow. Mae West won acclaim as La Petite Daffy in the same production.
• • Switching to silent films in 1917, Kathleen Clifford made her screen debut in the William Bertram directed mystery serial "Who Is Number One?" opposite silent film actor Cullen Landis. She would appear in several high-profile roles throughout the late 1910s and early 1920s, most notably: opposite Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. in the comedy "When the Clouds Roll By" [1919].
• • With the advent of the talkies, Kathleen Clifford made one short sound film and then settled into semi-retirement.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Marlene and Milan

When MAE WEST was starring in "My Little Chickadee," a comedy set in the old West, Universal Pictures was also producing a Western-themed musical comedy "Destry Rides Again" [which debuted in New York on 30 November 1939]. Though the title would seem to be weighted in the direction of two actors — — James Stewart in the title role as Tom Destry, Jr. and Charles Winninger as his deputy Washington Dimsdale — — Dietrich owns the movie. This vehicle became a career reviving performance for the fishnet stockinged bar singer Frenchie, sexy and memorable despite wearing a hideous wig.
• • Born in Germany in the month of December — — on 27 December 1901 — — Marlene Dietrich was an actress and a singer who knew Mae West when they were both stars at Paramount Pictures.
• • Here are Mae West and Marlene Dietrich on the set of "My Little Chickadee" in 1939. Dietrich is in her Frenchie costume and Mae is made up as Flower Belle Lee.
• • Mae-mavens will also remember former vaudevillian Charles Winninger as Van Reighle Van Pelter Van Doon in his 1937 featured role in "Every Day's a Holiday" starring Mae West.
• • Mae West & Salvador Dalì Back in Milan • •
• • Salvador Dalì is back in Milan, Italy for the first time since the solo exhibition which took place in October 1954 in Sala delle Cariatidi — — always at Palazzo Reale. This same Cariatidi’s room was so inspiring for this artist that he took it as model for his mansion in Figueras, today seat of the Fundaciò Gala-Salvador Dalì.
• • “Once again, we need Dalì to escape from an often boring and predictable condition. And this exhibition aims exactly to break the cultural conformism and express the great power of creativity at best," explains the Milan City Councillor for Culture Massimiliano Finazzer Flory. . . .
• • The set of the exhibition is designed by the architect Oscar Tusquests Blanca, friend and collaboration of Salvador Dalì: he is author, together with the master of Surrealism, of Mae West’s room in Figueras’s museum and of the famous sofa Dalilips.
• • For the first time, the Mae West room will be reproduced inside this exhibition exactly as Dalì originally imagined it: an extraordinary surprisingly installation of contemporary art. . . .
— — Excerpt: — —
• • Article: "Salvador Dalí Exhibition in Milan has Welcomed More than 222,000 Visitors in Two Months"
• • Published by: ArtDaily.org
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Harry Carroll

It was 1912 when MAE WEST got her first major vaudeville break: a spot on the bill at Hammerstein's Victoria in mid-May. At last the scintillating singing comedienne could demonstrate that she was in a league with top-tiered headliners such as Eva Tanguay, Sophie Tucker, Fanny Brice, and Nora Bayes.
• • Later that year, close to her 19th birthday, Mae had been invited back to "The Corner" for a week-long booking that began on 6 August 1912. She shared the stagebill with several acts — — including Fields and Carroll.
• • Mae West heard Fields and Carroll perform their jaunty rag "On the Mississippi" — — on the corner of Seventh Avenue and 42nd Street. And then "Mae West and Her Boys" were on, singing a few rags and playing the bones, minstrel style.
• • Harry Carroll, a well-regarded American songwriter, pianist, and composer, was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey on 28 November 1892. Noticed by the top people, in 1912 20-year-old Carroll was hired by the Schubert brothers' Winter Garden productions as a contract writer. Sought after for Broadway shows from 1910 — 1921, he wrote musical numbers for producer Flo Ziegfeld — — for instance, for the "Ziegfeld Midnight Frolic" [1920] — — and others.
• • From 1914 — 1917, Harry Carroll served as the director of ASCAP. He moved to Hollywood with his wife and began work on various silent films.
• • Harry Carroll died in the month of December — — on 26 December 1962, in Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: May You Be Merry

_________________________________________________
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: The Outcome of Income

MAE WEST, so determined to be in control of her image and her legacy, is now at the mercy of some "receivership" [ahem] that profits from selling her likeness and claims to represent "her estate." It's interesting that the actress's Will left one-third of her estate (including future earnings) to benefit the Actors Equity Fund. Several phonecalls (over time) to union headquarters in Manhattan revealed that they did not know this nor have they received one penny, as Mae had intended. Who IS raking in the green, you might wonder?
• • According to Canadian journalist Katrina Onstad, who did a fascinating article for The Globe and Mail: Technology has reshaped celebrity death. In 1997, Dirt Devil released an ad showing Fred Astaire dancing with a vacuum cleaner. The press and public were appalled, and sales of the vacuum cleaner actually declined. Exhuming the dead for the purposes of shilling engendered a protective feeling in the audience. Astaire had no agency in this particular pas de deux (not to mention poor, erased Ginger Rogers) and there was something chilling about the fact that the strings animating the corpse were held by a computer.
• • “A dead person is vulnerable in ways a living person is not!” • •
• • Katrina Onstad writes: In 1981, Greil Marcus wrote with horror that Elvis Presley had become in the mere four years since his death “a T-shirt, a black velvet wall hanging, an emblem of working-class bad taste or upper-class camp.” “A dead person is vulnerable in ways a living person is not,” Marcus wrote. “A dead person can be summed up or dismissed.”
• • Katrina Onstad continues: Three decades later, dead celebrities aren’t just reduced, but regurgitated, revived, remixed and reissued, making a silk-screened T-shirt seem like a folksy little problem. Today, anyone with a computer can put herself in a room with Elvis, add a Santa hat and send a Christmas card around the world. The Dorchester campaign didn’t seem to generate any disgust at all. In the age of techno-mechanical reproduction, manipulation of the dead is a yawner.
• • Corbis acquired Mae West, now for rent (not unlike a taxi dancer) • •
• • Katrina Onstad emphasizes: And so, dead celebrities have become big business. In 2005, stock photo agency Corbis acquired a roster of “classic personalities,” including Einstein and Mae West (psst — — classic means dead). The arm where they now reside at Corbis is called GreenLight, which reportedly earned $50-million in 2009 by renting dead stars for endorsements. “The nice thing about a dead celebrity is [that] scandal is behind them,” a GreenLight VP told the Puget Sound Business Journal. Living artists should be wary of these shenanigans, at least if they believe their work is what creates value. To split a dead performer from her context for fun or profit seems like . . . .
— — Excerpt: — —
• • Article: "Dead celebrities are big business"
• • By Katrina Onstad
• • Published by: The Globe and Mail [Canada] — — a division of CTVglobemedia Publishing Inc., 444 Front St. W., Toronto, ON Canada M5V 2S9
• • Published on: 17 December 2010
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Goin' to Santa Anita

Since Jack West, the father of MAE WEST, was very fond of horse racing, he was often photographed enjoying himself at Santa Anita Park. His daughter was also followed by the cameras there — — for instance, when she filmed her scenes for "Goin' to Town" [released on 25 April 1935 ]. Mae-mavens will recall that part of the storyline that transports our intrepid heroine Cleo Borden to a mythical track in Buenos Aires to race her thoroughbred.
• • Now that 1935 Paramount Pictures scene will be memorialized in a unique wall calendar for 2011.
• • The wall calendar has been an opening-day Santa Anita Park give-away to attendees for quite awhile. This year's edition will feature a dozen motion pictures that have been shot at Santa Anita. In addition to "Goin' to Town," "Charlie Chan at the Race Track" was shot at Santa Anita Park as well as "Seabiscuit" — — and their archivists have selected nine other movies.
• • Where to buy a calendar: Champions! at Santa Anita Park, 285 W. Huntington Drive, Arcadia, California 91007-3439; Tel: 800-675-2114.
• • Tell them you heard about their commemorative calendar on the MAE WEST Blog.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1935 at Santa Anita Park with Beverly West and Jim Timony • •
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Mae West: Gray Ending

MAE WEST staked her claim on the shimmy-shewabble. But so did Gilda Gray, who was lithe, lean, and long-legged — — and inclined to shake her chemise.
• • Gilda Gray [24 October 1901 — 22 December 1959] was a Polish born American actress and dancer who became famous in the US for popularizing a dance called the "shimmy" which became fashionable in 1920s motion pictures and theatrical productions.
• • In 1931 the highly paid golden girl suffered her first heart attack perhaps due to the turmoil surrounding financial reverses after the Wall Street crash and messy romantic entanglements.
• • By the time of her death at the age of 58 from a second heart attack — — on 22 December 1959 — — Gilda Gray was once again in financial trouble and dire straits. The Motion Picture Relief Fund paid for her funeral.
• • December 22nd • •
• • Actor James B. Carson [1884 — 1958] worked with Mae West in "Vera Violetta," which opened on 20 November 1911 at the Winter Garden Theatre. The Broadway veteran was cast as Professor Otto von Gruenberg. It was in the month of December — — on 22 December 1884 — — that Carson was born in Missouri. He was active on The Great White Way from 1908 — 1928.
• • "Vera Violetta," offered in repertory with "Undine," remained at the Winter Garden Theatre through the Christmas holidays, closing on 24 February 1912.
• • After the clash with Gaby Deslys, Mae West's part as Miss Angelique from the Opera Comique was awarded to Kathleen Clifford, who also worked with Mae on Broadway in "A Winsome Widow" [April — September 1912]. Since the enchanting Miss Clifford has an interesting bio and she died on December 28th, her tribute will be coming up next week.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Movieland Wax Museum

Logan Fleming, who calls himself "the best wax figure maker in the world," visited MAE WEST at home after she agreed to be sculpted and rendered in wax for Buena Park's celebrity memorial destination — — Movieland Wax Museum.
• • The California tourist attraction first opened in 1962. A commercial artist who was often commissioned to do billboards, Fleming was disappointed by the figures on display; he felt he could do a much better job and was, eventually, hired.
• • According to Peter Larsen, who did a fascinating article for the Orange County Register: Around 1970, the museum started sending Logan Fleming out to do sittings at the homes of celebrities who agreed to be memorialized in wax. He'd photograph them from every angle, measure their heads and facial features with calipers, and usually come back with a good story about what the stars were really like.
• • Peter Larsen writes: The cast of "Star Trek" were among the first stars he met. He also met comedians Dan Rowan and Dick Martin from "Laugh-In." And, in a particularly memorable encounter, he worked with Mae West, then in her 80s.
• • "She was a real tough baby," Fleming says of Mae West, whose full story takes up a large part of the book he wrote with co-author Suzanne Sumner Ferry.
• • "She was 83 and she was still wearing a little negligee."
• • Peter Larsen adds: Throughout the '70s, Fleming created wax figures, from start to finish. Allen Parkinson sold the museum in 1970, and Fleming survived several changes in ownership, serving as the museum's art director and sculptor for nearly 30 years. He also worked a few freelance jobs with other wax museums on the side. In all, Fleming figures he's worked on more than 1,000 sculptures, from the early ones he painted to the later ones he made from scratch.
• • Peter Larsen concludes: Movieland Wax Museum closed on Halloween, 2005, and it was a tough day for Fleming. "I think it broke his heart to see that and not know where (the wax sculptures) ended up," Suzanne Sumner Ferry says. As for the book they've written — — The Day the Stars Stood Still — — even though it's still being shopped to publishers, Fleming is happy that it simply exists. . . .
— — Excerpt: — —
• • Article: "His Movieland memories are stronger than wax"
• • By PETER LARSEN
• • Published by: THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER — — www.ocregister.com
• • Published on: 17 December 2010
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Vaux on Sixth

In the middle of December in 1937 there was an avalanche of hissing headlines about MAE WEST — — in Variety, Time Magazine, The New York Times, and the Motion Picture Herald (such as "Radio Begs Trouble") — — thanks to her promotional appearance on The Chase and Sanborn Hour with Edgar Bergen.
• • The broadcast was timed to publicize her latest motion picture "Every Day's a Holiday," the 80 minute comedy released on 18 December 1937. The film was directed by A. Edward Sutherland [5 January 1895 — 31 December 1973].
• • How did Mae react to the hysteria whipped up by the hungry hounds in the news room? Naturally, she had seen a similar blitzkrieg when she was arrested in 1927 and paddy-wagoned over to the Jefferson Market Police Court.
• • That stately structure was co-designed by Frederick Clarke Withers and Calvert Vaux. Born in London in the month of December — — on 20 December 1824 — — Calvert Vaux was an architect and landscape designer. He is also well remembered as the co-designer (with Frederick Law Olmsted) of New York's Central Park.
• • The Jefferson Market Branch, New York Public Library, still familiar to New Yorkers as Jefferson Market Courthouse, is located at 425 6th Avenue (SW corner of West 10th St) in Greenwich Village, New York City on a triangular plot formed by Greenwich Avenue and West 10th Street. The building was originally built as the Third Judicial District Courthouse between the years 1874 — 1877.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Lyrical

There's a lot of MAE WEST going around. She's on the turntables thanks to "Wild Christmas" collectors. Additionally, "Burlesque" star and singer Christina Aguilera [born in 1980] has brought fresh interest to "A Guy What Takes His Time." It's positively lyrical.
• • Meanwhile, across the channel in Great Britain, trend-spotter Ian Gillespie, searching for a catch phrase to call his own, warmly recalls Mae. Ian Gillespie writes: There was a time when only celebrities and corporations needed catchphrases. If, for example, you were a 1930s Hollywood sex symbol with a penchant for naughtiness like Mae West, your catchphrase would be, "Why don't you come up and see me sometime?" The Lone Ranger had a catchphrase ("Hi-yo Silver, away!"). So did comedian Rodney Dangerfield ("I don't get no respect."), actor Robert De Niro ("You talkin' to me?"), and veggie vendor the Jolly Green Giant ("Ho Ho Ho") — — although I understand he and Santa's people have been involved in a lawsuit over that for decades.
• • Ian Gillespie notes: Of course, it wasn't just people that needed catchphrases. Companies needed them, too. If you made running shoes like Nike, your catchphrase could be, "Just do it!" (Which quite frankly, could've also worked for Mae West if she weren't being so coy.) . . . .
— — Excerpt: — —
• • Article: "This catchphrase column is The Real Thing™"
• • By: IAN GILLESPIE, The Flip Side
• • Published by: The London Free Press [Great Britain] — — www.lfpress.com
• • Published on: 18 December 2010
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Shimmy and Jimmie

MAE WEST often inspired one-liners by reporters. Sixty years ago, for instance, this amusing statement threaded its way down the center aisle of prime Hollywood real estate — — the "In Hollywood" gossip page.
• • Watching Mae West stroll down the avenue, I always catch myself musing on the sway of all flesh, Jimmie Fidler wrote on 17 December 1940.
• • Jimmie Fidler [24 August 1900 — 9 August 1988] was an American columnist, journalist, and radio and television personality. He wrote a Hollywood gossip column.
• • Source for the quote: Column "Jimmie Fidler in Hollywood," which ran in the Los Angeles Daily Mirror.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Santa Stand-Off

MAE WEST released her share of LPs and did not shy away from cutting a Christmas groove, something every celebrity has done from Elvis to Mariah Carey to Bob Dylan to Johnny Mathis to Bing Crosby to Eartha Kitt. Musician Bob Stanley identified ten main ingredients for a holiday hit. His section "Add sauce" mentioned the Brooklyn bombshell's plum.
• • Bob Stanley writes: Even Sir Cliff [Richards] recommends mistletoe and wine; put them together and you have the ingredients for lewd behaviour. Eartha Kitt set the bar high with Santa Baby in 1954, but Ella Fitzgerald had already cut the unbroadcastable Santa Claus Got Stuck in My Chimney ("when he came last year" — — would you believe) in 1950. Santa, Come Up To See Me [on the album "Wild Christmas" in 1966] might be a predictable Mae West festive title but the song is anything but. Over a folk-rock backing, the ageing Mae West breaks into an eerie prediction of Kate Bush's December Will Be Magic Again, before subsiding into double entendres. . . .
• • To read more, see the link below.
— — Excerpt: — —
• • Article: "Bob Stanley's guide to writing the perfect Christmas hit"
• • By: Bob Stanley [Bob Stanley is a member of Saint Etienne, whose Christmas album A Glimpse of Stocking is desperately seeking buyers]
• • Published by: The Guardian [Great Britain] — — www.guardian.co.uk
• • Published on: 16 December 2010
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Patience of a Saint-Saens

Unafraid of a challenge, a culture clash, nor an opportunity, MAE WEST sang an abbreviated opera aria in her motion picture "Goin' to Town" [release date: 25 April 1935] costumed, hilariously, as the Biblical temptress Delilah. Portraying the star-crossed strongman Samson she serenades was none other than Mae's pesky in-law Vladimir Bykoff [billed as "the Tenor"]. Classical music buffs are either amused by Mae's spunkiness or astonished.
• • Born in Paris on 9 October 1835, Camille Saint-Saens was a French Late-Romantic composer, organist, conductor, and pianist, known especially for The Carnival of the Animals, Danse macabre, Samson and Delilah, Piano Concerto No. 2, Havanaise, etc.
• • Camille Saint-Saëns died of pneumonia at the Hôtel de l' Oasis in Algiers in the month of December — — on 16 December 1921.
• • 16 December 1905 • •
• • Before Daily Variety was born to make piquant and acidic observations, publisher Sime Silverman put out a vaudeville-focused weekly newspaper — — known simply as Variety — — beginning on 16 December 1905. Though Mae West was not in the first issue, it was not long before their sarcastic reporters were giving her a black eye.
• • Then quite early in its game, Daily Variety picked up on the naughty B.O. trend with its "Mae West Ditto Sought in Vain," an article that revealed:
• • "Success of Mae West has many Hollywood agents on the hunt for girls of the same type. Search is not only in the usual spots, but in burlesk and carney shows. So far there have been few gals of the West type uncovered, chief trouble being that those who have acquired the West hey hey are too decrepit for the camera."
• • How many issues of Variety did Mae West preserve?
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West.

Mae West: Heat and Earle

MAE WEST played Fay Lawrence in "The Heat's On" — — and this actor was cast as one of Fay's writers in the movie. No doubt he would not have done a worse job on the screenplay that wound up giving Mae a headache (not to mention a rash of blistering razzberries).
• • Born on 16 July 1882 in Toronto, Canada, Edward Earle was active in vaudeville and on the stage where he was cast in musical comedies. His theatrical work paved the road to Hollywood and the slim six-footer was seen in close to 400 motion pictures from 1914 — 1956.
• • Edward Earle died during the month of December — — on 15 December 1972 — — in Woodland Hills, California. He was 90 years old.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Rare On the Air

Your Christmas stocking will be hung with care [well hung] if there's a copy of MAE WEST — On the Air tucked inside. These rare recordings from 1934 — 1960 are available now on a CD. Don your gay apparel and get ready to enjoy these five appealing tracks:
• • • • "My Old Flame"
• • • • The Chesterfield Supper Club with Perry Como — January, 1949
• • • • The Chesterfield Supper Club with Perry Como — 16 February 1950
• • • • The Dean Martin Show — NBC-TV — 1959
• • • • The Red Skelton Show — CBS-TV — 1 March 1960
• • Invited to sing a duet with ol' Rat Pack Dino on a "Dean Martin Special," Mae West performed "I Can't Give You Anything but Love" with her host in "point style" (that is, making asides to the lyrics).
• • Dean Martin was born on 7 June 1917 Dino Paul Crocetti in Steubenville, Ohio, to Italian parents. He died during the month of December — — on Christmas Day 1995.
• • Tell Santa you deserve to have Mae's rare CD because you've been good — — but, of course, goodness had nothing to do with it.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West: Raymond Hubbell

MAE WEST was cast in "A Winsome Widow," a musical comedy farce that was produced on Broadway from 11 April 1912 — 7 September 1912. The music was by Raymond Hubbell.
• • Born in Urbana, Ohio on 1 June 1879, Raymond Hubbell attended local schools but earned serious musical training in Chicago. Like most young men at the time, he formed a dance band in Chicago. Ready for serious employment, he accepted a position as a staff arranger and pianist with the influential firm Charles K. Harris Publishers.
• • By 1902, the 23-year-old began composing for theatrical musicals in The Windy City. And, fortunately, his very first show then transferred to New York City.
• • By 1905, he was regularly being pulled in to Broadway projects. In a short time, Raymond Hubbell was composing light fare for productions starring Nora Bayes. By 1911 he was assigned to the Ziegfeld Follies, which kept him on for later editions.
• • In 1912 he was hired to do the score for "A Winsome Widow." Following up these successes, he would write for Bessie McCoy, Will Rogers, Julian Eltinge, Irene Dunne, Leon Errol, and others.
• • After he worked on "Three Cheers" in 1928, he returned to Miami, Florida. Raymond Hubbell died there in the month of December — — on 13 December 1954.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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